No Erasers Needed

The Global Village Project (GVP) is an innovative special purpose school for refugee girls and young women with interrupted schooling.

“With an approach focused on students’ strengths and resources, GVP demonstrates how adolescent English Language Learners with limited and interrupted education can be highly successful students and empowered citizens. GVP aims to provide an exemplary model of excellent and equitable education for newcomer refugee learners.”¹

The Global Village Project School urges students not to just learn English but to thrive in learning, to not just be in school but experience life, with their multi-cultural peers and within their local communities. Arts are a critical part of the GVP curriculum.  A student explains how each experience can impact their studies, “"I like the High Museum.  They have a lot of things like pictures, the dresses, the horses and the carriage."

This year, the school had a wonderful partnership with the High Museum of Art Atlanta, The program at the  museum supported the school’s goals of providing multi-faceted learning for the whole student.  The experience was different than ones the students had in the past.  Another student explained, “"I liked the designing on the dress form.  I like it because it comes from my brain and I create it myself.  I try to make it pretty.  I learned a lot of things that I've never done before."  Her explanation of the experience shows whole student learning goals of the GVP program.

GVP benefited from an expanded educational program that allowed for 10 visits to the museum.  The teachers stressed how special the program was for them and the students, "I loved that the students had ten consecutive visits to the museum.  They saw so much art in so many different styles and media.  And, most of all, they were given the chance to make art and build on what they had learned previously.  We (the teachers) enjoyed making art with the girls, learning about ourselves and the students as we worked together.  This was a very special educational treat for all of us."

Learning has the ability to open students to new experience, have them think about ideas in a different way, and can show the student a whole approach to skills.  One student's observation shows us this, "It's fun.  Miss Karin did a lot of cool activities.  We designed the dress with ribbons and the beads. I liked drawing in my art book and it was funny that she didn't give us erasers because she said mistakes can turn into better ideas."

A student exhibit opened on December 6, 2015, and will be open for a month.

At the culminating celebration, the students saw their artwork displayed with those of students from  other schools.  They received certificates and had one final opportunity to make art with the HMA staff.

¹https://globalvillageproject.org/mission-vision-values-purpose/